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“Sometimes the hardest conversation to have is the one you have with yourself.”

A thought by Kyle Idleman (2014-03-01) from his book, AHA: The God Moment That Changes Everything (p. 85). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

And we all know that is the truth.  It is so hard to be brutally honest with ourselves isn’t it?

Kyle in this book is using the story of the Prodigal Son as the biblical basis for his thoughts.  Maybe you remember the story of this young son who came to his father and asked him to give him his inheritance before time and he then went out and blew it all.  Finely he finds himself in a pigpen feeding pigs and he says, “How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.” (Luke 15: 17– 19)

Kyle says, “He was honest with himself about what he deserved. That kind of honesty is difficult. The hardest person in the world to be honest with is the person in the mirror…”

He goes on, “Like the wife who wakes up to her critical spirit but refuses to say, ‘I have been wrong to be so negative. I know my husband needs my encouragement and support, but I’ve just complained and criticized.’  Like the husband who realizes his sexual sin but refuses to say, ‘My pornography problem has created a wedge in my marriage and has hardened my heart toward my wife.’”

Kyle goes on, “No one wants to say those things. No one wants to look in the mirror and admit: I have chosen to sit on a couch watching Sports Center over being a spiritual leader in my home. I go shopping and spend money we don’t have to make me feel better about the things in my life that I can’t control. I haven’t had real faith in years. I’m pretending to be someone I’m not to impress the people around me, but the truth is I’m a hypocrite.”

He then says, “The Bible calls the moment when we have a moment of brutal honesty and we tell ourselves the truth— even when it’s not what we want to hear— confession. AHA doesn’t happen without it. There are a number of ways the word confession can be understood and defined, but here’s one definition of confession: to agree. You come to a place where you stop disagreeing with truth and you honestly say, ‘Here I am.’”


So what is you need to be brutally honest about to yourself and to God?
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